A painting depicting the Christmas Truce of 1914, as British and German soldiers shake hands and stop fighting in defiance of the orders of their superior officers. The truce lasted one day.

A Christmas message from Paul Angel

n the hearts of normal men, there is a natural revulsion to the killing and maiming of other human beings. It is why so many soldiers return from wars bearing the irreparable scars of emotional trauma that haunt them the rest of their lives. Many prefer suicide to living out their remaining days with the memories retained of the mangled bodies, amputated limbs and the lives they were forced to take themselves. Today’s wars are the institutionalization of ghastliness, but on a grand scale, all orchestrated by vultures in three-piece suits safely ensconced behind closed doors in fancy offices, mahogany-paneled board rooms and governmental headquarters. These warmongering men and women generally stand little to lose and much to gain as they nonchalantly send our children out to massacre one another in the most horrendous ways possible.

But even in the midst of these costly, bloody and all- too-often unnecessary conflicts, man’s humanity to man can and does emerge, especially amongst Christians during the time of Christmas. During World War I, for instance – a war that pitted armies numbering in the millions facing off along multi-mile battlefronts strewn across the globe and eventually costing the lives of an estimated 16 million soldiers and civilians – the spirit of Christmas overcame the media-induced bloodlust.

In late 1914, Pope Benedict XV asked the warring nations of Europe to institute a temporary Christmas truce. Unfortunately, the heads of the nations involved would not sanction any halt in the bloodletting. That was when soldiers took matters into their own hands.

On December 25, 1914, a spontaneous truce broke out between German, French, Belgian and English soldiers who agreed to stop fighting long enough to collect their dead and wounded comrades without fear of enemy sharpshooters picking them off. In many portions of the trenches on the Western Front, Christian soldiers simply refused to disgrace the holy day by killing and, suddenly, men were emerging from trenches and exchanging gifts and souvenirs in "no-man’s land." Impromptu soccer games broke out instead of hand-to- hand combat. Enemies reportedly sang Christinas carols together, with German soldiers surfacing from once muddy but now frozen positions with small Christmas trees. It didn’t hurt that the cold, harsh and rainy weather had turned to snow, blanketing large swaths of the battlefront with a "white Christmas."

Needless to say, those running the war – the politicians and money grubbers – were not happy and banned such displays of brotherhood in the future. They did not want their soldiers fraternizing with the enemy. Warriors might find out that their opponents were much like themselves, with wives and children and sweethearts back home.

The Christmas truce lasted one day, and then it was back to the slaughter for three more execrable years.

Once again we are at war in Europe, this time with Ukrainian soldiers battling their racial brethren from Russia to stop them from seizing chunks of strategic land and seaports. Currently, tens of thousands of Whites have died. Have we learned nothing from the devastating wars of the early and mid-20th century? Are we still so barbaric that we human beings cannot come up with another way to settle our disputes? Even the stone age tribes of the Amazon reject wholesale mass slaughter as an abhorrent solution to internecine squabbles, preferring instead to smack each other on the head with long, heavy poles, as the Yanomamo of Brazil still do.

Unfortunately, it is not the soldiers who make the decisions. If they did, there would probably be no more wars. As TBR readers well know, it is the armaments makers, industrialists, bankers and posturing politicians who make these deadly decisions for the rest of us.

No matter which side of this conflict in Ukraine you support, one thing we can all agree upon is that this is yet another senseless European tragedy that will only end with more soldiers, civilians, men, women and children, old and young paying the ultimate price for the decisions of their avaricious and heartless hegemons.

Today, nations slaughter one another’s soldiers from a great distance away with ballistic rockets, explosive shells fired from tanks and missile launchers, suicide drones and bomb-drops from high above, making such a truce nearly impossible. It’s hard to see the humanity in the eyes of your enemy when he is 500 miles away.

But perhaps – just perhaps – all the soldiers on the frontlines of Ukraine could simply forget the orders of their superiors and agree to stop the killing, cross the existing enemy lines and shake the hands of their opponents; meet them, talk to them – if but for one day, December 25, 2022. If not, humanity loses and the mass murder will continue until this world runs the risk of becoming a nuclear wasteland. Would their Masters ever sanction peace? Is peace on Earth even possible these days? We can only hope and pray.

Paul Angel is Executive Editor of The Barnes Review Magazine (TBR). The message and the painting are from the November/December 2022 issue of the magaizine.